


my baby's sweeter than cotton candy

by cottonclouds



Series: crybaby bridge [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Blood, Dark Richie Tozier, Dom/sub Undertones, Fights, Gymnast Eddie, Homophobic Language (mild), M/M, Mutilation (very mild), Pet Names, Possessive Behavior, Power Imbalance, Smoking, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:34:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25906672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cottonclouds/pseuds/cottonclouds
Summary: It starts that summer, Richie thinks—wedged someplace between when he socks Bill for nearly getting Eddie killed in search ofhisdead brother and that last brush with Pennywise.Richie can’t help it, not really. Not when he’s the first of them to face Pennywise, a metal bat in his shaking hands and Eddie crowded against his back, soft fingers in the crook of his elbow, stuttering, “Don’t let it get me, Rich. Please, Richie.” Not when he cracks the bat over Pennywise’s head with practiced ease—years of playing baseball—and Eddie trembles and cries against his back, begging Richie to keep him safe. Not when he drops the bat from the shock of it all and Eddie packs himself into the open space between Richie’s arms, heaving and sobbing andthankinghim, and Richie’s thoughts are a jumbled string ofEddie, Eds, my love, my boy, mine, mine, mine.—Richie Tozier contends with his werewolf.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: crybaby bridge [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2123262
Comments: 20
Kudos: 148





	my baby's sweeter than cotton candy

**Author's Note:**

> hello!!! so, this is my first time writing a dark!richie fic (not my first time writing a reddie fic, though) because i really love the trope and i've wanted to write a fic about it for a while, but i was nervous it wouldn't come out great. if it isn't that good, i'm sorry; i don't really like my writing, personally, and like i mentioned i've been _really_ nervous to write for this trope despite being a big fan of it. that being said, if you think i missed any important tags on this fic, please tell me!
> 
> i want to thank my friends for giving me positive reinforcement while i wrote this! i love you guys <3
> 
> [here's a little aesthetic i made to go with the fic!](https://shortcqke.tumblr.com/post/626480577116274688/my-babys-sweeter-than-cotton-candyeddie)  
> (i'll also be making a playlist for this series, _crybaby bridge_ , so keep an eye out for that!)

It starts that summer, Richie thinks—wedged someplace between when he socks Bill for nearly getting Eddie killed in search of _his_ dead brother and that last brush with Pennywise.

Richie can’t help it, not really. Not when he’s the first of them to face Pennywise, a metal bat in his shaking hands and Eddie crowded against his back, soft fingers in the crook of his elbow, stuttering, “Don’t let it get me, Rich. Please, Richie.” Not when he cracks the bat over Pennywise’s head with practiced ease—years of playing baseball—and Eddie trembles and cries against his back, begging Richie to keep him safe. Not when he drops the bat from the shock of it all and Eddie packs himself into the open space between Richie’s arms, heaving and sobbing and _thanking_ him, and Richie’s thoughts are a jumbled string of _Eddie, Eds, my love, my boy, mine, mine, mine._

And Richie knows that he’s done for, because the second his brain starts feeding him possessive soliloquies about Eddie, he can’t stop them. They come in an overflow, a rush of nonsensical sentiments that Richie barely has time to process, let alone understand. Eddie will shove his way into the hammock, tanned legs pressed to Richie, to his arms, legs, side, stuck close _so_ close, and Richie’s thoughts will dissolve into nothing but _Eddie, Eds, mine, mine, love, love him, touch, touch, touch him._

He spends that summer desperate. Desperate to stop the thoughts (because this is _Eddie_ , Eddie Kaspbrak, his best friend, his asthmatic spitfire, his favorite person in the whole world, and he can’t feel this way, can’t _own_ him; God, he’s a person, he’s a _person_ , not something for Richie to _play_ with); desperate to be a normal thirteen-year-old boy, to think about the things he should, like girls and comic books and homework; desperate for something from Eddie, more, anything—his time, his attention, his _love_.

But in the end, it only gets worse.

Richie turns fourteen, fifteen. Starts high school. He changes from tacky Hawaiian shirts and khaki pants to leather jackets and ripped jeans, and girls start seeing him as more than _Trashmouth Tozier_ , a nuisance to be avoided at all costs. They fawn over him, whistle and wink at him, giggle when he passes them in the halls. He barely notices until Beverly points it out, poking him with the toes of her steel-toed boots during one of their smoke breaks.

“You know you’re hot as shit, right?”

Richie snorts instinctively, putting on a choppy British accent to answer, “That so? Is this your fixed attempt to court me? Miss. Marsh, I do declare.”

Beverly rolls her eyes, shoving him harder with the toes of her boots. “No, jackass, and if you keep talking like that I’m going back to lunch. I’m telling you this as an objective fact. You are hot as shit, and somehow, you’re completely oblivious to it. I mean, dude, Sandy from Algebra went on for at least thirty minutes the other day about how _handsome_ and _mysterious_ you are—” she pauses to make a vague motion with her hands, one that Richie won’t pretend he understands for a minute. “—like, two seats behind you, and you barely batted an eye. Are you really that oblivious, or is she not your type, or what?”

“Mm,” is the only response Richie can summon, flicking ash from the butt of his cigarette. He considers telling the truth, except, what the _fuck_ is he supposed to say? _Actually, Bev, my type is five-foot-zero asthmatics with soft brown hair and doe eyes; with freckles over the bridge of their nose and down their shoulders; with red short shorts that they’ll argue to death are_ good for breathability and are a perfectly average length, Richie!; _and there’s a werewolf gnawing on my bones and heart that I can barely contain from picking its way out every time I stop myself from kissing them. Cool, huh? Okay, bye, see you last period._ He doesn’t think even she could understand that—not even Beverly Marsh, his smoking buddy, his confidant, the sharpest of all the Losers—could understand how he feels about Eddie.

So, he settles for, “Her ass is too small for me,” and Beverly shoves him again, hard enough that he topples from the ledge they’re perched on and onto the grass below. “Aw, what the fuck, Bev, I just washed these jeans yesterday.”

“Eddie washed those jeans yesterday,” she bites back, eyes sparkling.

And that’s the end of it. Beverly never mentions it again, so he doesn’t, either. Except he can see her thinking it over, sometimes—watching he and Eddie in her periphery, from where they’re wrapped up together in the hammock, Eddie bracketed between his arms and thighs, packed together so tightly that they’re sweating bullets but too comfortable to move; to them swaying in the water at the quarry, pressed so close that he can smell Eddie’s spearmint gum and vanilla body wash. He can tell she wants to say something. But she doesn’t, so Richie doesn’t, either.

Richie turns sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. His dad starts teaching him to drive on his sixteenth birthday and he has his license by his seventeenth, when Eddie, hammered from drinking six glasses of peach schnapps Beverly stole from her aunt’s liquor cabinet, almost makes Richie crash his dad’s expensive new BMW by grabbing the wheel while Richie is driving them back to his house for the night. Richie finds himself jumping from freshman to senior fast enough to give him whiplash, his friends always one step behind.

Except for Eddie.

Except for Eddie, who starts pulling away from him by the end of eleventh grade. Who starts dodging him in the halls. Who starts ignoring his phone calls, pretending like he hadn’t gotten them at all (but Richie _knows_ he does, knows he picks the phone up and puts it back on the hook, hears the _click_ of Eddie hanging up on him). Who starts avoiding him at the clubhouse, opting to sit on the floor and read with Stan rather than pervading Richie’s space in the hammock, even when he splays his arms wide and says, “Dontcha want your daily dose of Tozier cuddles, Eddie spaghetti?” grinning around the sentiment.

“No,” Eddie replies, succinct. Soft pink mouth turned down in a sour pout. Richie would think it was cute if he weren’t boiling with anger. “And don’t call me Eddie spaghetti. You know I don’t like it, Richie, and you always call me it anyway.”

Richie wants to throw a fit. Richie wants to yell and scream and punch the clubhouse wall so hard the roof caves in. Most of all, Richie wants to grab Eddie by the chin and turn those brown doe eyes on him, wants to say, “You don’t talk to me like that. You don’t _ever_ talk to me like that, Eddie Kaspbrak, and if you do it again you’ll regret it.”

But he doesn’t want to be an asshole, especially not to Eddie; doesn’t want to upset him further, even though Richie has no fucking clue what he did. So he settles on, “Whatever floats your boat, Eds.”

Eddie glares. Clenches his teeth. “Don’t call me that, Richie. Don’t fucking call me Eds. I hate it when you call me Eds.”

And Richie almost cracks. Almost. He uses every ounce of the self-control he hasn’t burned out over the years to stop from flinging himself at Eddie, stop from rearing him up by his pretty brown hair and warning, “Go ahead and talk to me like that again, Eddie. Talk to me like that again and see where it gets you. I dare you to.”

The werewolf claws at him. Chews on his bones and scratches at his heart. Richie swallows it down and replies, “Sorry, Eddie.”

Eddie turns his button nose up and scoffs, and before Richie has time to do something he might regret, Beverly cuts in. “Hey, Rich, why don’t we go have a smoke?” she asks, fishing a pack of Marlboro's and a glittery black lighter from the pocket of her jean jacket. She holds them up for Richie to see, raising a brow and tilting her head to the clubhouse exit.

Richie takes a harsh breath out. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Alright.”

Beverly grins, making her way up the ladder and through the hatch. Richie follows, pausing on the second rung to glance back at Eddie, who has seemingly gone back to normal. He’s giggling and reading with Stan, small hands turning the pages of the book Stan has in his lap. When he notices Richie staring, he looks up and gives a grating glare, doe eyes cold and narrowed. And the werewolf in Richie growls, claws harder at him, tries to climb out. Tries to make him go right back down that ladder and over to Eddie, to make him grab Eddie by the chin and pull his soft pout down with hard fingers, to make him tell Eddie _you’re mine, puppy, and you don’t tell me what to do. You don’t tell_ me _what to do, I tell_ you _what to do and you listen to me. Do you understand, Eddie? Do you get it now?_

But Beverly taps the heel of her boot against the hatch and says, “You coming or what, trashmouth?” and Richie has no choice but to follow her out. She shuts the hatch behind them and motions for him to follow, leading Richie to a gathering of rocks a few feet away from the clubhouse. Far enough away that the other Losers won’t be able to hear them talking, but close enough that they’ll still be able to find their way back without getting helplessly lost (which happened the first time they ventured away from the clubhouse to have a smoke).

Beverly makes herself a cozy spot on one of the rocks. Richie drops to the ground by her feet, moving a few twigs out of the way so he can sit comfortably. They’re completely silent as she hands a cigarette to Richie, offering him a light once he has it between his teeth. Neither of them say anything for a few minutes, Richie focusing on easing his anger and Beverly, he assumes, waiting until he’s calm enough to confide in her. “I just don’t know what the fuck I actually did,” he says, finally, flicking ash from the butt of his cigarette.

“Mm,” Beverly acknowledges. “You know how he gets, Rich.”

Richie sighs. “I do.”

Because it’s been that way since they were kids. Eddie will get pouty and sour with Richie for no evident reason, and Richie will have no fucking clue what he actually did and no fucking clue how to fix it. And, in due time, Eddie will stop avoiding Richie like the plague; stop ignoring him at school, stop hanging up his calls, stop turning his little nose up at Richie when he splays his arms and beckons him onto the hammock. Eddie will fall into Richie’s waiting arms like nothing happened at all, pressing his soft pink pout to Richie’s cheek in a careful kiss.

Beverly takes a swift pull from her cigarette, eyeing Richie like she has something else to say but isn’t sure if she should. “Hm.”

“What?”

“It’s just—” she starts, voice tight. “I don’t know. Something seems off between you two.”

“Nothing is off between us.”

Beverly studies him for a second, brows knit. “You’d tell me if there were?”

Richie puts his cigarette out. “Yep,” he lies. “Come on. We should start heading back. Ben is probably getting separation anxiety and I need to start kissing Eddie’s feet.”

“Gross,” Beverly retorts, putting her own cigarette out and flicking the butt away. “But seriously, Richie. You’d tell me if something were going on between you and Eds?”

“Already said I would, Bev.”

“You better not be bullshitting me,” she warns, tone biting. “Now come on, I want to see you start grovelling to Eddie.”

Richie rolls his eyes. “Ha-ha, very funny,” he says.

Beverly cracks a grin and turns on her heel, leading the way back to the clubhouse. Richie trails a little ways behind, watching from a short distance as she pops the hatch and drops straight down into the clubhouse, not even bothering with the ladder. When he makes it to the hatch himself, she’s standing at the foot of the ladder, smirking up at him. “What, do you expect me to do the same thing? I’ll break my fucking legs,” Richie cracks, climbing down the ladder after her and pulling the hatch shut behind them. “Are you a fucking cat, or what?”

“A tabby,” Beverly quips, winking and ruffling her curls.

“More like a pussy,” Richie retorts.

Beverly makes a noise caught somewhere between a gasp and a laugh, delivering him a swift punch to the arm. “Jackass!” she admonishes.

Richie, aye pompous, gives her a smarmy grin. “And proud of it,” he trumpets, and Beverly—with a complementary eye-roll—deals him a sharp elbow to the ribs. Barely a second goes by before Richie goes to grab her, more than likely planning to put her in a headlock (his go-to), but she darts across the clubhouse before he can get a good hold. Beverly counters the responding glare from Richie with a triumphant middle finger, turning her attention from him to Ben and Mike, sprawled across the pink beanbag chairs Eddie nagged Richie into buying for the clubhouse a few months back.

Once Beverly seems preoccupied with whatever Ben and Mike are up to, Richie steers his attention elsewhere—more specifically, to where he last remembers seeing Stan and Eddie reading together. They’re no longer cozied up on the floor, but they _are_ still together; Eddie curled up by himself in the hammock and Stan at the foot, holding up the book he’s reading for Eddie to see. The whole scene is rather cute, Richie supposes, but he never really was one to abide by the whole “sharing is caring” thing.

“Hey, Eddie,” he calls, puttering over to the hammock. Eddie unfurls, propping himself up on his elbow and looking at Richie expectantly, but not happily. Stan sighs, sparing Richie a single glance—of warning, he can only assume, if the way Stan’s eyes practically burn a hole through the side of his head are anything to go by—before he leaves to join Bill, who’s reading a comic book a few feet to the side of the hammock. Richie watches him go, feeling oddly snippy. “You want to go for ice cream later, sweet pea?”

Eddie stares daggers. “No,” he replies, sharp and bitter. “I have practice.”

Richie breathes. In. Out. “After?”

Eddie eyes him. Brows furrowed, face sour, little pink pout turned down. “No,” he repeats petulantly. “You can’t just buy me things and call me sweet names and think that’ll make me forgive you, Richie. It doesn’t work like that.”

Richie stares him down. Tries, for all he’s worth—with _every single_ millimeter of his fraying self-control—to stay calm. To stamp the werewolf down, fling it from his bones. But he looks down at Eddie, and his furrowed brow, and his sour little pout, and thinks of the way he bit, _Don’t fucking call me Eds,_ and Richie snaps. He lurches forward before he can stop himself, catching Eddie’s chin in his hand. “Don’t you fucking talk to me like that,” he warns, voice low. “Don’t fucking talk to me like that, Eddie. If you do it again, you’ll regret it.”

Eddie stares up at him, lips parted. Richie digs his thumb into his chin. “What do you have to say for yourself, puppy?” he asks.

Before Eddie gets the chance to answer, Richie is being yanked away from him by the back of his shirt. Eddie goes toppling out of the hammock. “That’s enough,” he hears Stan say. “If you can’t behave, Richie, you need to go.”

“If I can’t behave,” Richie repeats, crowing snidely. “You’re asking _me_ to behave, Stanley? What, like you? Practically eye-fucking Eds over here every fucking time you see him? I mean, maybe you guys _have_ fucked, unbeknownst to me. How did he feel, Stan the man? Was it good for both of you?” He motions between them.

“Richie,” Stan says. A warning.

“Stanley,” Richie replies. Mocking.

Richie barely has the chance to blink before Stan decks him, right across the jaw. “You’re such a fucking prick,” Stan spits, shaking his hand out.

“But of course, darling.”

Before Stan has the chance to haul Richie up and go again—because Richie can tell he clearly plans to—Beverly steps between them, helping Richie up and touching her hand to Stan’s chest, keeping him back. “Alright,” she says. “I think that’s enough for today, boys. Mike, why don’t you walk Rich back to his bike?”

Richie doesn’t miss the look that passes between them, almost as if they know something he doesn’t. He also doesn’t miss the way Eddie is staring up at him from the floor, lips still parted, a finger-shaped bruise forming underneath his soft pink lips. Dumbstruck. “Yeah, alright,” Mike confirms, slinging an arm over Richie’s shoulder and leading him to the hatch.

The walk back to their bikes is silent, but before Richie has the chance to head off, Mike stops him. “Hey, Rich, listen,” he says. Richie isn’t really up for listening. He considers riding off without letting Mike get a word in edgewise, but it’s Mike. Mike, the most sensible of all the Losers. Mike, the one who rode a broken-armed Eddie to the hospital in the basket of his bike with Richie riding double, just so he could stay close to Eddie. And so he doesn’t budge. “Bev and I weren’t gonna tell you this, but...we think the reason Eddie’s so pissed with you is because of all the time you’ve been spending at the arcade.”

Richie stares blankly. He doesn’t know what to say, because Mike is looking at him like he just disclosed the biggest secret in the entire universe. Richie isn’t catching on. “What?”

Mike scratches the back of his neck. “With Connor Bowers. You know, Henry’s cousin? The blond guy.”

And then it clicks.

“Oh my God,” Richie laughs out, near hysterics. “He’s mad that I’ve been spending time with Connor _fucking_ Bowers?”

“Yeah,” Mike confirms. “At least, that’s what Bev said.”

Richie shakes his head. “Un-fucking-believable,” he snorts. “Thanks for the intel, Mikey. Tell Bev I owe her one. You, too. Lord knows Eds would pitch a royal fit if he knew she told you that and then let you tell me.”

“I’ll be sure to pass it on.”

“Aye, aye,” Richie replies in one of his voices, giving Mike a two-fingered salute before booting his kickstand up and hopping onto his bike. He peels off in the direction of his house, trying his damndest to reign in his ill temper—which is, for all intents and purposes, pointless. Richie cracks almost comically fast, fingers tightening around his handlebars as he thinks over the fact that the reason Eddie has been being such a priss lately is because Richie, God-forbid, plays a few games of _Street Fighter_ with Connor Bowers; like he hasn’t been in love with Eddie since they were nothing more than pudgy little first graders. It’s this very train of thought that has Richie veering his bike to a halt, spinning it the opposite direction and heading toward the gymnasium he knows Eddie practices at. He knows, somewhere in the back of his head, that this is crossing a line. He doesn’t really care.

The parking lot is packed when Richie pulls up, and he thinks, briefly, that this is an awful lot of people to be attending a simple practice. He doesn’t dwell on it, instead rounding the building and decidedly chaining his bike up to the fence that houses the building’s generator. He swings his leg over the side of his bike and descends, making his way around the front of the building, pushing his way past a few groups of chittering teenage girls to make his way through the propped-open double doors. There’s a sign hung up on the wall that warns _no cigarettes!_ , so Richie tucks his pack deeper into his jacket pocket.

He makes his way down the long hallway, earning a few glares from middle-aged women when he peeks in on a few classes in search of Eddie. Richie finds him in the second to last room on the right, wearing a pink-to-blue gradient leotard decorated with sparkles. He doesn’t even notice Richie, at first, too busy stretching on one of the padded mats.

But when he _does_ notice Richie—oh fucking boy.

Eddie looks up at Richie from his spot on the floor, legs spread wide open, hands rested on his knees. Richie doesn’t remember the name of the stretch, doesn’t even know if it had one in the first place—but it ends up distracting him enough that he spends a solid minute staring at Eddie’s tan thighs before finally meeting his eyes. And Eddie, to the surprise of no one, looks _pissed._ He’s giving Richie what would appropriately be called a death glare, pouty pink lips pulled up into a nasty little frown. He finishes his stretch up and stands, sparing a glance to the bleachers (to his mother, Richie assumes) before bustling over to Richie, offering a few waves and smiles to the girls he passes on the way.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Eddie hisses when he reaches Richie, pushing him out of the gymnasium and into the hallway.

“I came to watch you practice, sweet pea,” Richie replies easily. “Is that a capital crime?”

Eddie bares his teeth, small fists clenched by his sides. “Leave, Richie.”

“No.”

“Leave, Richie!” Eddie repeats, raising his voice markedly. It draws a few concerned looks their way, and one of the girls even hops down from where she’s jumping on the trampoline to check on Eddie, touching his shoulder with a manicured hand while she sizes Richie up. She asks Eddie if he’s okay, if Richie is bothering him, looking like a monumental bitch with her high ponytail and chewing gum. Eddie assures her that he’s perfectly fine, that Richie is just a friend of his. She parses a glance between them, looking pretty skeptical but still giving a brisk nod, squeezing Eddie’s shoulder once before heading back into the gymnasium. Eddie watches her go, turning back to Richie after she’s gotten back onto the trampoline. “Just go, Richie!”

“Absolutely not.”

“For the love of God,” Eddie fusses, pushing Richie further into the hallway. “You are _literally_ the most annoying fucking person I have ever met. Just go!”

“Not until we talk.”

“About _what_?” Eddie throws his hands up. “We have nothing to talk about, Richie!”

“Bullshit,” Richie snaps. “You’ve been acting like a prissy little bitch lately, so tell me what your fucking problem is.”

Eddie’s eyes go stormy. “You fucking _prick_!” he shrieks.

Before Richie can manage a snide reply, Eddie is drawing his hand back, clearly poised to either shove Richie or give him a smack across the face—he isn’t one-hundred percent sure, but he does figure it isn’t Eddie gearing up for a punch, since that doesn’t exactly strike him as a very “Eddie” thing to do—except his hand never makes contact, because Richie catches his lithe wrist in strong fingers before it gets to. Eddie is staring up at him the way he had at the clubhouse, soft and confused, lips parted just enough for Richie to make out the pink braces his mother forced him to get last year, and there’s a small finger-shaped bruise on his chin that _Richie_ put there; so he goes for it, crowding into Eddie’s space, holding his wrist hard enough to hurt, to bruise. “I don’t think so, puppy,” he tuts. “Is that any way to behave?”

“Richie,” Eddie says, low and careful, but Richie can tell by his sour little pout that he’s doing anything but giving in. “Come on, let me go. Please?”

“That’s sweet,” Richie rejoins; voice soft, eyes sharp. “Using your manners. “Please.” You’re such a doll.”

Eddie squirms in his grip, but Richie holds firm, pressing in closer and tightening his fingers even further around Eddie’s petite wrist. “Richie, s—”

“Hey, Eddie, are you still doing alright?” someone cuts in before Eddie gets the chance to finish speaking. Richie turns to see who it is (and Eddie tries, but ultimately finds himself blocked by Richie’s much wider frame), finding it to be the same blonde girl from earlier, looking just as annoying as Richie remembers, with her high ponytail and chewing gum.

“He’s fine,” Richie answers flatly.

“I was actually asking _Eddie_ ,” she snaps back, quick on her feet. If Richie weren’t boiling with anger, he’d probably admire her for it.

“I’m fine, Abby,” Eddie assures, turning his head in her— _Abby’s_ —general direction. And then he steers his attention back to Richie, looking up at him with tender brown doe-eyes that have Richie, much to his chagrin, softening around the edges. “Look, Rich. Practice lets out in twenty minutes. If you go now, I’ll meet you at the Kissing Bridge after, okay?”

Richie gives him a searching look. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. “Twenty minutes, alright, Rich?”

Richie, evidently satisfied with that answer, finally drops Eddie’s wrist from his vice-grip and takes a few steps back, giving Eddie the chance to breathe a relieved sigh. Abby rushes to his side in Richie’s absence, making herself a barrier between them, practically burning a hole through Richie with her hostile glare. He offers nothing more than a piercing laugh in return, fishing his cigarettes from the pocket of his jacket and lighting one up, watching as Abby gives him a look caught somewhere between confusion and fervid rage. “Oh, put your hair down, blondie,” Richie says callously, flicking ash from his cigarette directly onto her gaudy leopard-print leotard. She looks about ready to pounce. “He’s fine, ain’t he?” Richie makes a vague motion to Eddie, tucked behind Abby’s left shoulder.

“He’s fine this time,” she’s quick to bite back. “But I know boys like you, Richie Tozier. And I know what boys like you do to boys like Eddie, so you’d better fuck off if you know what’s good for you, asshole.”

Richie raises a brow. “Oh, should I?”

“You really fucking should.”

“Abby,” Eddie interjects, touching her back carefully. “It’s fine, seriously.”

Abby shifts her fixed glare from Richie to look at Eddie over her shoulder, crowded behind her with a soft frown, huffing; and, notwithstanding the fact that she clearly isn’t done speaking with Richie, she allows Eddie to tug her back in the direction of the gymnasium. Richie gives a snide wave as she goes, simpering woundingly. “See you in twenty, Eddie spaghetti,” he calls over her head, waiting for Eddie’s response—which comes in the form of a short wave and Eddie tilting his head out from behind Abby, offering him a sugar-sweet smile—before he turns to leave, heading back through the still propped-open double doors he came in through.

Richie steps out onto the pavement, the balmy air of late-spring in Derry hitting him like a ton of bricks after being in an air-conditioned building for the past half-hour or so. There’s a prissy looking forty-something soccer mom on one of the wooden benches out front, turning her nose up and giving a sour look as he passes; so he flicks the ashy butt of his cigarette at her, snorting when she makes an indignant noise in the back of her throat. “Little shit,” she grates scoldingly as Richie rounds the building, lighting a new cigarette in place of the last one and unhooking his bike from the fence. He stuffs the chain lock into his jacket pocket and shins up to his bike, pedaling out onto the deserted street.

(A backwash of the summer of ‘89, he knows—a strict eight o’clock curfew that has locals fleeing to their houses a good two hours before the set time, afraid of Pennywise coming back to snatch up more little tykes who stray too close to sewer drains. Not that they know Pennywise was to blame, anyway; all they know is that there was a new missing child case popping up on the news every single day that year, dolls and tricycles and teddy bears ditched on every Derry street corner with the rugrat who owned them never to be seen again. Richie hardly ever follows the curfew, mostly because he isn’t scared; because he knows Pennywise is never coming back. He saw to it himself that day in the summer of ‘89—took a bat to its head and swung hard enough to kill, because Eddie asked him to. Because Eddie looked up at him with watery doe-eyes, sniffling and trembling, and asked Richie to protect him.)

Richie is halfway to the Kissing Bridge when he checks his watch. Ten after seven. He knows Eddie will bite his head off if he shows up just a second too late, but even the thought of Eddie giving him a long-winded lecture about the necessities of being punctual isn’t enough to stop Richie from winding his bike in the opposite direction and taking off toward the only mall in Derry—a seedy strip mall catty-corner to Main Street—hoping that if he shows up with gifts, Eddie will be less pissy with him.

Probably not.

Richie weaves across Main Street, earning himself a few calls of, “Watch where you’re going!” and “You little shit!” when he speeds through the crosswalk before the walk symbol is up. He pulls into the parking lot of the strip mall, not surprised in the slightest when he finds it practically abandoned and the employees at the still-open shops locking doors and turning signs. He ambles up to one of the pillars supporting the hanging roof and chains his bike to it, sidling up to the only store without tired minimum wage employees glaring at him through the windows— _The Gap_. He rarely shops there, mostly because the prices are way too high for someone on a lawn mower’s salary, but he thinks Eddie likes it (more than thinks, actually. He remembers the hour-long tirade Eddie had gone on about _the cutest pair of overalls I’ve ever seen, Richie!_ and the fact that Sonia refused to buy them for him because she, “didn’t want him dressing like a fairy,” whatever the fuck that was supposed to mean).

A cheery bell tings over Richie’s head when he pushes his way through the glass double-doors, prompting the cashier to look up from her stool and give him a pretty lackluster greeting. Not that Richie really minds, since he hardly acknowledges her before disappearing into the racks of clothing. He ends up with a white sweater and a pair of acid-wash overalls with pastel pink flowers sewn into the front pocket and sides. When he takes them to the counter, the cashier gives him a _look_ , quirking an eyebrow. “For your girlfriend?” she asks, scanning the tags.

Richie snorts, fishing his wallet out of his jacket pocket. “Something like that, yeah.”

“It just doesn’t seem like something you’d wear,” she continues, motioning to Richie’s outfit.

“Overalls are my Saturday outfit,” he rejoins, wry-mouthed. “Could you just hurry up? I have somewhere to be.”

The cashier gives an annoyed little huff, but she finishes ringing the clothes up without another word, folding them into a blue paper bag. Richie takes the bag when she shoves it his way, scooping it up from the counter and sliding it over his wrist. “Have a nice day, sir,” she says when he turns to leave, a snippy edge to her voice, and Richie has half a mind to turn back and get pissy with her over it. But he has somewhere to be, and he can only _imagine_ what Eddie would do if he had to spend his night bailing Richie out of jail; so he lets it go, opting, instead, to make his way back through the glass doors and to his latched bike. He unfastens the lock, shoving it back into his jacket pocket and shinning up to his bike, peeling off in the direction of the Kissing Bridge.

Richie zips back across Main Street, double-checking his watch as he goes, the red numbers blinking _7:35 p.m._ back at him. He knows that he _really_ doesn’t have time for another stop, but that isn’t enough to put him off from making a quick drop by _The Derry Dish_ , a little diner a few blocks up from the Kissing Bridge that he knows has Eddie’s favorite “forbidden” (by Sonia, of course) snack—double chocolate shakes. Richie shells out the last of his pocket change to buy one, which means he covers the last few blocks to the Kissing Bridge one-handed. It isn’t necessarily difficult, but Eddie’s voice rings in his head the entire time— _do you know how_ dangerous _that is, Richie? You’re going to kill yourself!_

Somehow (by the grace of God, Richie would say, were he religious), when Richie breaks in front of the Kissing Bridge, Eddie isn’t there. Richie raises a confused eyebrow and checks his watch again. 7:42. “Weird,” he mumbles to himself, dismounting his bike and letting it fall to the ground. It isn’t like Eddie to be late—hell, it isn’t like Eddie to be _on time._ Richie is surprised that he hasn’t been here waiting for a good thirty minutes, posed by his bike with a little furrow in his brow and a sour pink pout. He figures it probably has something to do with Sonia, since she barely likes letting Eddie go out during the day, let alone so close to curfew.

Richie hauls himself up onto the splintering wood, dropping the bag of clothes by his feet and balancing the milkshake at his side. He rifles around in his jacket pocket for his cigarettes and lighter (a _Sailor Moon_ one—gifted to him by Eddie, even though he’s constantly nagging Richie to stop smoking), plucking one from the pack when he finds both things and lighting it up. He takes a few drags, smoking in silence for a few minutes until Eddie finally pedals up, braking his bike next to Richie’s and climbing down. Unlike Richie, he boots the kickstand down and sets his bike up gingerly, rather than absentmindedly tossing it to the dirt.

“Well, I’m here,” Eddie quips once he’s facing Richie, hands on his hips. Richie takes note of the fact that he’s still wearing his leotard, the only difference being that he now has a pair of black dolphin shorts pulled over it. If he didn’t even take the time to change before he came to the Kissing Bridge, it’s more than likely his lateness is to be blamed on Sonia Kaspbrak; Richie figures he isn’t at all welcome to ask about it, so he doesn’t bother trying. Eddie is giving him this _look_ , pouty and indignant, arms crossed and brows furrowed. When he notices that Richie is smoking a cigarette, his nose scrunches up. “Richie! Why are you smoking _again_? I tell you to stop all the time!”

“You’re the one who gave me a lighter as a gift, my love,” Richie is quick to remind him. Just the same, he stubs his cigarette out and flicks the butt off, always more than willing to indulge every single one of Eddie’s whims. “I bought some things for you on the way here.”

“Oh no, no, _no_. Absolutely not,” Eddie snips. “You are _not_ allowed to buy your way out of me being mad at you, Richie!”

Richie clicks his tongue. “Aw,” he coos derisively, hopping down from his perch atop the Kissing Bridge while Eddie fixes him with a piercing stare. “Why not, babydoll?”

“Richie,” Eddie warns.

“Right,” Richie rejoins, putting on a Voice. “His highness doesn’t like being called that.”

Eddie takes a step closer and Richie takes one back, circling in the opposite direction to sweep the gifts into his arms, offering them up to a very displeased-looking Eddie. He’s giving Richie a caustic stare-down, arms crossed indignantly over his chest. “Oh, come on. Take them,” Richie urges, holding the gifts out further. With a huffy sigh, Eddie begrudgingly relents, accepting Richie’s armful as his own. He takes a few sips of the milkshake before setting it aside, clearly more interested in rummaging through the paper bag. Richie watches patiently as he tugs the overalls out of it, running his fingers over the stitched-on flowers, his taut frown twitching up into a soft half-smile. And God, does Richie hope he stays like that, chirpy and pliant—ready to fall into Richie’s waiting arms and tuck himself up under his chin, the way he always does.

He doesn’t, of course.

Barely a second passes before Eddie’s half-smile falls back into a nasty little pout. He drops the overalls back into the bag and kicks it aside, crowding his way into Richie’s space, up on his tiptoes, as close as he can get to Richie’s face. “You can’t buy your way out of this, Richie,” he seethes, lips pulled back. “I’m angry at you, and I’m going to _stay_ angry at you.”

Richie blinks. Eddie is so close that Richie can smell the mint on his breath, his vanilla body wash. The werewolf snarls; sinks its teeth into Richie’s heart, claws at his ribs. He snaps forward without another thought, his hand lashing out to grasp at Eddie’s chin, fingers molding over the bruises he left earlier in a vice-grip. Eddie makes a hurt little noise that Richie ignores, dragging him to his knees so he can be eye level with the _R+E_ carved so deeply into the splintering wood of the Kissing Bridge that it’s practically through the other side. “Stop being such a fucking nightmare, Eddie,” Richie says, voice even. “Stop being a bitch because you think I like Connor Bowers. I couldn’t give less of a shit about that blond asshole. I love _you_ , and you’re being a prissy little twat because I played a few rounds of _Street Fighter_ with _him_.”

Eddie blinks owlishly at the carving. “It’s—me?”

Richie barks out a laugh. “For fuck’s sake. Of course,” he says. “It’s always been you.”

“Oh,” Eddie breathes.

“Yeah, fucking _oh_ ,” Richie snaps back, tightening his fingers on Eddie’s chin. He feels a few hot tears drip over his knuckles.

“I’m sorry.”

“You are, huh?” Richie asks. “Prove it, puppy.”

He drops his hand from Eddie’s chin, taking a few steps back to give him room to pull himself up from the ground. When he turns to face Richie, his brown eyes are watery. “Prove it?” he asks, fiddling with the bottom of his shorts. “How?”

Richie takes a deep breath in through his nose, feeling his jacket pocket for the outline of the Swiss army knife his dad gave him for his sixteenth birthday. It’s there, as always. “I need you to trust me, okay, sweet boy?” he asks, dropping to one knee. Eddie flushes at the nickname, but nods, anyway, taking a hesitant step forward. Richie pats at his elevated thigh. “Leg up.”

Eddie eyes him carefully. “Are you...I mean, are you sure, Rich?”

“Yeah, Eds,” Richie replies, patting his thigh a second time. “Leg up.”

Eddie still looks hesitant and skittish, fiddling with the hem of his shorts. Richie gets ready to urge him on again, but Eddie beats him to the punch, taking another step forward to bridge the gap between them and carefully lift his right leg up onto Richie’s thigh. “Good boy,” he praises, and Eddie flushes again, right to the tips of his ears. “This is going to hurt, okay? But I need you to trust me. Can you trust me, Eddie spaghetti?”

Eddie’s nose scrunches up at the nickname, but he nods assuredly. “I trust you, Richie.”

Richie nods back, flicking the blade of his knife out and taking it to Eddie’s tanned thigh. He gets the downward stroke of an ‘R’ in before Eddie makes a noise similar to a kicked puppy, reaching out to wrap his small fingers around Richie’s wrist. “I know it hurts, my love,” he coos sympathetically, rubbing softly at Eddie’s fingers with his free hand. “Do you want me to hold your hand while I do it?”

Eddie sniffles, murmuring out a soft, “Yes, please,” to which Richie obliges, uncurling Eddie’s fingers from his wrist and twining their hands together. He presses a fond kiss to the juncture of Eddie’s knee and goes back to work, finishing off the last curves of a letter ‘R’ while Eddie squeezes his hand hard enough to make it go numb. Richie takes a brief pause to rub a hand over Eddie’s calf in a comforting manner, kneading the skin softly.

“You’re alright, sweet pea,” he reassures. “I’m almost done.”

Eddie sniffles again, repeating, “I trust you, Richie.”

Richie smiles up at him, clicking his knife shut for a second so he can reach up and brush the tears from Eddie’s brown doe-eyes. “I know,” he replies, giving Eddie’s cheek a warm squeeze before retrieving his knife and picking up where he left off, etching a plus sign next to the carefully carved letter ‘R’. He completes it with a quick, precise flick of his knife, moving lastly to cut a letter ‘E’ with just as much caution as he had the other parts of the marking. Once he finishes the final line of it, he offers Eddie a smile. “I’m done.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know you are, baby boy,” Richie replies, snapping his knife shut and returning it to his jacket pocket. “Do you have gauze and antibiotic cream in your fanny pack?”

“You need to wipe the blood off, first,” Eddie says, already coming back to himself. “I don’t have anything for that.”

Richie shrugs his jacket off, emptying the pockets and balling it up, ready to press it against the wound. “Wait!” Eddie practically shrieks, reaching out to grab Richie’s wrist and pull the jacket away from his thigh. “You can’t use your jacket for that! Do you know how hard blood stains are to get out of fabric?”

Richie snorts. God, he loves this boy. “I don’t give a shit, Eds.”

Eddie grumbles irately, scrunching his nose up. “Don’t call me that,” he says, back to being playful over bitter. “It’s gross, and _you’re_ gross, but fine.”

“That’s my love,” Richie says fondly, pressing his jacket to the wound once Eddie lets his wrist go. “It isn’t bleeding that much, anyway. I didn’t cut in that hard.”

“Speaking of, um,” Eddie fumbles, nervously scratching at the back of his neck. Richie raises a brow. “That. You know, the whole, ‘carving our initials into my leg’ thing. Why’d you do it?”

“Why’d you let me?” Richie retorts, peering up at him. Eddie flushes and looks away, picking at the hem of his shorts. Richie decides to take pity on him. “I don’t know. I was just tired of you being pissy with me. You know I don’t give a shit about Connor Bowers, right?”

Eddie flushes darker. “I know,” he says. “It’s just—you bailed on me. Last Friday.”

Richie raises a confused brow. “Huh?”

“Last Friday,” Eddie repeats. “We were supposed to hang out at the clubhouse. You never showed, so I ended up getting milkshakes with Bev. When I called that night and asked why you never came, you said your game of _Street Fighter_ with Connor ran over.”

“Sometimes you’re such a bitch, Eddie,” Richie replies, taking his jacket away from Eddie’s thigh to check on the wound. The bleeding has stopped, but the soft skin around the carving has gone red. He touches it carefully with his thumb and Eddie flinches. “How many times have I told you that Connor is a blond prick and I just like showing him up?”

“Don’t call me a bitch,” Eddie grumbles, but his face is flushed a deep shade of scarlet. “You know I don’t like it when you call me that.”

“Uh-huh,” Richie deadpans. “Okay, sure, I totally believe you. But you didn’t answer my question: how many times have I told you that Connor is a little blond asshole and the only reason I play _Street Fighter_ with him is to show him up?”

Eddie huffs. “A lot.”

“Right,” Richie replies. “A lot. Connor Bowers is a shitheel and you’re my favorite boy in the whole world, Eddie. You know that.”

Eddie flushes an even deeper shade of red, if that’s even possible; Richie certainly didn’t think it was. “I know that,” Eddie repeats, unzipping his pink fanny pack and pulling out gauze, tape, and a half-used tube of antibiotic cream (which Richie knows is only half-empty because of he and Beverly; they practically live in a perpetual state of doing stupid shit that leaves them with scrapes and bruises that Eddie always tends to, caring for their wounds with a measured precision while he talks their ears off about being more careful), handing them to Richie without even looking at him. “I’m sorry, Rich.”

“I know you are, sweet boy,” Richie assures, accepting Eddie’s handful of medical products as his own. He uncaps the antibiotic cream and squeezes some into his palm, attentively spreading it over the cuts. Eddie flinches when it touches his skin, so Richie presses a warm kiss to the soft skin of his thigh, just below the wound. Once he decides that he’s put enough antibiotic cream on, Richie smooths a square of gauze over the carving, taping the ends as neatly as he can, even though he’s sure Eddie will complain about it. “All done.”

Eddie looks down at his thigh, nose scrunching up. “That looks horrible,” he chastises, just as Richie expected him to.

“Yeah, yeah. We can’t all be tiny medical professionals, Dr. K.”

“Don’t call me tiny,” Eddie berates, moving his leg from where it’s propped up on Richie’s thigh and back to the ground when Richie pats his calf to indicate that he can. “Or Dr. K.”

“Then stop being a tiny doctor,” Richie shoots back, shrugging with one shoulder.

Eddie rolls his eyes and wobbles slightly on his feet, probably from having one of his legs propped up on Richie’s thigh for so long. Richie automatically juts his hand out to catch Eddie by the arm, keeping him upright, and Eddie blushes all over again. “So, um,” he stammers out, picking at a loose string on his shorts. “Did you mean it?”

“You’re gonna have to be more specific, Eds.”

Eddie picks harder at the string, flushing all the way to the tips of his ears. “When you, um—when you, uh, said you loved me?”

Richie nods knowingly. “Of course I did, Eddie. I’m not _that_ much of a dick.”

Eddie snorts a small laugh, soft pink lips pulling up cutely. “Good,” he says. “Me too.”

“You too, what?” Richie asks, just to tease.

“I love you too,” Eddie grumbles, foregoing picking at the string on his shorts in favor of crossing his arms over his chest. “Dummy.”

Richie beams, horribly enamored with his boy. “That’s my baby,” he says, soft and fond, rubbing his thumb over Eddie’s cheekbone. “Let’s get you home before Mrs. K pops a blood vessel, huh? I’m sure your thigh hurts, so I’ll ride you double on my bike and come back for yours after I drop you off. Sound good?”

Eddie nods agreeably, leaning up on his tiptoes to press his lips to Richie’s cheek in a careful kiss. “I love you so much, Rich.”

Richie thumbs at the space beneath Eddie’s right eye, leaning down to press his lips to Eddie’s forehead in a careful kiss of his own. “You’ll give me a complex, Eds,” he goads, smiling down at Eddie adoringly. “I love you more, sweet pea.”

**Author's Note:**

> [eddie's leotard](https://cdn.rg-leotard.com/uploads/image/2570-kupalnik-dla-hudozestvennoj-gimnastiki-lunnoe-sianie-ris.4.jpg)
> 
> if you made it this far and you liked the fic, i'd really appreciate kudos and comments! and if you want to talk to me/send me asks (about this fic, reddie, my other interests, or really anything!) you can find me on tumblr at [shortcqke.tumblr.com](https://shortcqke.tumblr.com/)!


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